Pressure Gradient Effects on Supersonic Boundary Layer Turbulence.

Measurements of mean flow profiles at several streamwise locations in a supersonic turbulent boundary layer growing under a continuous adverse pressure gradient are reported. Tests were performed at a freestream Mach number of 3, for an adiabatic wall, using two curved ramps designed to produce constant pressure gradient flows. The velocity profile data, when transformed to incompressible coordinates, are in good agreement with Coles universal 'wall-wake' velocity profile and they indicate that the boundary layer is in local equilibrium and essentially independent of upstream history. In addition, the Coles wake parameters and Clauser shape factors, characterizing the transformed profiles, are in accord with the results of low speed correlations of adverse pressure gradient flows. The turbulent transport terms were extracted from the mean flow field data and indicate that for a given ramp, the profile of turbulent shear stress normalized by the wall shear, versus distance from the surface, normalized by the local boundary thickness, is severely distored by the pressure gradient although it is apparently insensitive to local conditions.